`bast'

[Larry Trask]

On Thu, 18 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> >According to Chambers also, it rhymes with gas, not with mast, in RP.

Interesting and curious.  Both my Collins dictionary and John Wells's
Longman Pronouncing Dictionary recognize the pronunciation with /-st/ as
the only possibility for RP, though Collins notes that `bass', so
spelled and so pronounced, is a variant of `bast'.

My copy of Chambers is at home.  I might note, though, that the Chambers
dictionary is Scottish, not English, and that it is traditionally
somewhat eccentric from an English point of view.  Its rather
distinctive approach is evident in all the numerous editions with red
covers, but, sadly, in its most recent edition, the one with a black
cover, Chambers has gone mainstream and abandoned its traditional
foibles.

An example: try looking up the word `eclair' in any of the red editions,
and then compare the entry in the new black edition.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk